Obama's 'fiscally conservative' hero: FDR

Well this explains a lot.  During an economic town hall last week, President Barack Obama lauded progressive hero Franklin Roosevelt as a "fiscal conservative."  Given Obama's track record on spending, it's no wonder he thinks FDR was "conservative":

CNSNews.com offers more historical perspective:

However, Jim Powell, author of the 2003 book, FDR's Folly, How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression said spending cuts to close the deficit had little to do with economic downturn of 1938.

“It’s a misleading analysis. The budget deficit during the Great Depression was such a tiny percent of the GDP, and because it was so small, it’s a hard case to make that these cuts cause the depression of 1938,” Powell, an adjunct fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, told CNSNews.com.

No one grew the size of government, taxation and spending in peacetime the way Roosevelt did, Powell said.

“FDR tripled taxes and spending more than doubled from 1933 to 1940,” Powell said. “That was the biggest increase in peacetime spending in American history. Before that, the biggest increases in spending came during wars.”

Further, the New Deal did not bring the economy back and prolonged recovery, Powell said, as unemployment was still at 17 percent by 1940, before war spending began to pull the country out of the depression.

For more on Obama vs. FDR, click here.